


Metallic Grey

by ivanolix



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Cylon Alliance, Cylons, Established Relationship, F/F, Female Anti-Hero, Female Character of Color, POV Character of Color, POV Female Character, Wordcount: 10.000-30.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-20
Updated: 2010-02-19
Packaged: 2017-10-20 18:49:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/215979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivanolix/pseuds/ivanolix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sequel to Black, White, Grey. AU. As Cally and Tory try to assemble a Cylon family from near scratch, the return of Demetrius prompts the revelation of all the secrets and lies floating around the Final Five, and it's time for them to take action.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Black, White, Grey](https://archiveofourown.org/works/215973) by [ivanolix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivanolix/pseuds/ivanolix). 



> For frolicndetour . Also, this chapter gets the higher rating due to a brief sex scene I hadn't quite planned on...the rest of the story is much more character-focused.

Lying seemed less drastic when you hadn’t had a choice in the start of it. Cally stood before Romo Lampkin and repeated the marriage-ending words back to him, looking at Galen’s face firmly the whole time. Then he did the same and they shook hands one last time.

“I heard you got the transfer,” Galen said in a low voice as Romo was distracted by his cat. “I wouldn’t have asked you to do it.”

“No, that’s why I did it myself,” Cally said. Looking at him now, she felt so different, and yet what had made them a couple was something she had chosen to lay aside. Being a Cylon just made it easy, if anything that disastrous was easy. Without another word, she turned and walked away.

She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed work until she had parts in her hands again, tools and jumpsuits and grease and a little smell of dirt everywhere. It helped her keep her breathing easy every time she saw something that sparked a memory of Chief, memories that weren’t soured yet, memories that could still hurt. She did her job in a human fleet, working on ships that were meant to destroy her kind.

Tory’s day had been filled with flatness, so she informed Cally as they met once off hours and walked down to the daycare together. Her role had always gathered all the dull essentials in one place, and the biggest threat was usually an ink stain. Cally, having just washed off a layer of grime at the sinks, grinned for a moment.

No eyebrows rose when Cally explained that she wanted Tory, not Galen, on her emergency contact list for Nicky. The daycare operator just nodded, looking Tory up and down with bored detachment as she familiarized herself with the new authorized pick-up.

“Some days I’ll be able to bring him with me, I think,” Tory said, as Cally picked up her child and prepared to go back with her.

Cally gave her a slightly surprised look, but was distracted by the smile that Nicky made in Tory’s direction before hugging Cally’s neck. This really was moving too fast, and yet she wondered, the Cylons had always been a close group. Maybe it was genetic.

“Do you mind?” Tory asked, as Cally was lost in thought.

“No,” Cally laughed incredulously, mind coming back to the present as she started walking back down the hall. “Though, won’t that be kind of hard?”

“Dull safe job, remember,” Tory intoned, giving her a look.

Cally forgot to analyze the connection, just embraced the moment and walked on. Nicky played on the floor that evening as she and Tory tried to find an organization principle that would fit their things in Tory’s one tiny closet. Cally just scratched her head after a few minutes, and said, “We can’t just use under the bed?”

Tory blinked. “That’s not officially a good place to store things.” Cally rolled her eyes at her until she said: “But...it works.”

Cally let her hand brush by Tory’s as they started putting everything in its place, and wondered if Tory noticed.

***

Tory noticed everything. She felt comfortable in details, in marking down the unimportant until, eventually, if she collected enough, it became important as a whole. It was easier than trying to do the other way, break down situations. But when it came to what they were, she wasn’t sure which tactic she was using.

“What is this?” Tory asked as she gathered their laundry together a couple days later and found a crumpled crayon drawing.

“It was from Hera, when I went to see Dee,” Cally said, looking across the room as she changed Nicky’s diaper. “I don’t know why she’s drawing horses, of all things.”

Tory frowned, looking at the paper, the riders and the...was that a tower? With tiny people atop, watching down. She breathed in sharply—watching down from a watchtower, as two riders approached. “Cally,” came her voice as she exhaled.

“Hmm?” Cally turned, a cleaned Nicky in her arms.

“It’s from the song,” Tory said, walking over and holding up the paper. “Two riders approaching the watchtower, it’s from the words.”

Cally’s jaw hung there, and she just stared for a second. “No,” she protested. “That’s just—”

“There are no weird coincidences anymore,” Tory said, before Cally could finish.

Worry crossed over Cally’s face, and she swung Nicky to her hip so she could grab the paper. For a moment she looked at the crude colored drawing, and then she folded it up and walked over to put it on the small table. “What’s the point in things like that if we can’t ask questions?” she ranted as she walked towards the door.

Tory shrugged, joining her on the way to dinner as she carried the laundry as a side mission.

She caught sight of Tigh, and if he hadn’t caught on the first day, he was certainly catching on now. This wasn’t just friendship, and the whole ship knew. Very little murmur, though, so at least the Cylon scandal wasn’t causing any problems. Tory thought that if anyone broke that, it would be Tigh, with the underlying skittishness to all his rocky bluster. When she mentioned it to Cally over their dinner, though, Cally pressed her lips together and said she sort of pitied him. Tory realized that she had shed memories of isolation too easily, too willingly.

It was hard not to, when each evening and night was spent so close to them both, the first real _family_ that Tory had ever been a part of. Not pleasant trysts, but proximity and warmth and un-perfumed smells and strange noises and...and it was nothing that Tory thought she’d wanted, until she had it and was strangely content. She slept with her arm tucked around Cally, sometimes her face snugly resting in her hair, sometimes her hand cupping Nicky’s small one. Normality kept shifting towards domesticity, moment by moment.

Nicky seemed to be improving with Cally, both in mood and appearance. He never looked quite as drippy as he had before, even the morning Tory woke and found that he’d crawled over Cally to sit on Tory’s chest.

She blinked her eyes open, saw him gnawing on his fist and grinning at her. “Brekkist,” he said.

“Oh, so just because it’s morning you can wake me up?” Tory asked under her breath, glancing over to where Cally lay sleeping curled on her side still.

“Brekkist, To-ee,” Nicky said, and nudged her with his damp fist.

“Tory,” she corrected, sitting up slowly so that he slid down into her lap. She yawned, brushing hair out of her face. “Shouldn’t children sleep more?” she grumbled in his direction.

“Brekkist.” He frowned, punching her arm.

She glared at him, but looking at the clock, she didn’t have much time before work anyways. Not enough time to wait for daycare, and she didn’t know how long Cally would sleep. She leaned over and tapped Cally’s shoulder. “Hey, I’ll take Nicky with me today.”

“Mm, fine, jus’ leave me ‘lone,” Cally mumbled and rolled further towards the wall.

“That’s right, mister, you’re getting breakfast and a career to pay for it,” Tory informed the child as she slowly got out of bed. “A just reward.”

He gnawed on his fingers defiantly as she set him down on his feet, and refused to give her the satisfaction of a response. Tory gathered up his things after breakfast and took him with her to her “office”, letting him sit at her feet while she worked out Fleet issues on paper, sighing as her to-do list filled up.

It took him less than an hour to find and get into her trashcan, but after a moment of peevishness, she realized that all that was in there was paper. Handing him a crayon that had ended up in her pocket, she informed him, “Go on then, get to work.”

He was an intense scribbler, and so for the next few hours they made notes and graphs and diagrams of varying complexities together. Tory was just happy he was quiet. When Roslin came to check her progress later, she raised a weary eyebrow but asked no questions until the very end. As Tory finished marking down the last note, she heard Roslin’s voice and looked up.

“Yours?”

“For today at least,” she answered automatically. “Maybe more. Depends on his behavior.”

Roslin’s eyes were expressive of something as she turned to walk out of the room, but Tory couldn’t read it. So she shrugged, reached down to snatch a stolen permanent marker out of Nicky’s hand, and got back to her work.

***

At first, Cally felt a little guilty on the days when Tory took Nicky, because she could stay later at work and yet didn’t want to cheat Tory out of time. After all, they still barely knew each other. But Tory just started staying up later, and as she didn’t seem tired, Cally decided that it worked.

“Want to talk?” Tory asked, as Nicky finally drifted off to sleep.

“About what?” Cally gave her a look. “Being Cylons?” The word rolled off her tongue easily as long as she said it with just a bit of irony, bitterness, frustration. Anything but true peace.

“You don’t ever just...talk?” Tory asked, with a quirk of her lips.

Cally frowned a little. “Well, I didn’t have time to think of anything to say...do you want to know something?”

“Well, since you bring it up, I’d like to know more about Nicky,” Tory said, glancing at the sleeping child.

“Like, silly stories, or necessary factoids?” Cally asked with a small grin.

“Can I have both?” Tory raised an eyebrow.

When they finally finished and went to sleep, Cally had decided to try to remember things to talk about the next day.

And there were too many of them. It was a stroke of luck that she was under the Raptor wing, fingers in the wires, when one of the deck crew made a comment about how the Fleet felt almost back to normal with the Cylon and her lover gone. Someone joked back that it didn't hurt that Starbuck went with them, but Cally had stopped listening. Her fingers clenched, a wire popped out and zapped her fingertip, and she didn't make a sound as she stuffed it back and bit the inside of her lip until it bled.

It was knowing her own strength that helped her find a calm by the time she popped out and could recognize the Cylon-hating faces. For the moment she just smirked at the thought of bashing their heads together, and finished the task. But the words followed her when she left the deck, and she had to pace the head for a few minutes before picking up Nicky.

Tory must have seen the glitter behind her eyes as she waited there, Nicky bouncing on her lap. "Need to talk?"

"Room," Cally gritted out, and gave Nicky a firm kiss on his head. As soon as the corridor was walked and the door closed behind them, though... "It's not fair. It's not fair that I should just _be_ a Cylon." She whirled, waving her hand at Tory. "Something keeps telling me to accept it, that it's just true, but everything around me is just pissing me off."

Tory held her tongue, silently reaching to take Nicky from her arms.

Cally groaned, pushed back her hair. "And how can you just brush it off?"

"It wasn't something I had a choice in, so I can hardly be angry."

"No, but that's just it," Cally protested. "I didn't ask for this! It's not my fault, so why should I have to deal with the consequences?"

"Look, Cally," Tory said, tipping her head towards her. "Humanity doesn't accept that kind of logic. Pointing out the flaws in their prejudices...come on, you don't really think it'll work. The only thing to do is accept the facts, and then use them to your advantage. Being angry won't help."

Cally gave her a look. "You know what? Frak that. Frak it to hell."

Tory snorted and raised an eyebrow. "Fine. But you'll just learn to hate yourself eventually."

Cally swallowed and didn't tell her that she thought she already did, that it felt like delusions when she managed to consider herself separate and not wrong. But the one thing that did help was secrecy. They all thought she was human; the Fleet just reinforced every day that without that one word identifier, she was the same person they trusted. And so as much as she burned with frustration over what it would mean if they _did_ know, it was a backwards sort of comfort to realize that it didn't really matter to her. She was a Cylon. So what?

Tigh reluctantly joined them in the mess hall, and Cally mutinously refused to feel upset. She could accept that being a Cylon wasn't a disaster from the inside; her next goal would be keeping herself inside until it became who she was. Until she stopped protesting human opinions because she really wanted to believe them; until she wasn't somehow angry at herself for being a Cylon.

The next couple days were spent patching up the hull, by herself, nothing but her own thoughts. She could use her extra strength to move boxes with ease, and of all the Cylon-y things her practical mind did love that one. She forced herself to say the word ‘Cylon’ over and over in her head, how it was just a word, just a word for being stronger and unkillable, and what was so wrong about that? It was all just a generalization to attach the connotation of “genocide” to a name.

As she applied patches, welding this old ship back into shape, her mind kept twisting the word around, until by the second day she realized that all she was doing was finding all the ways that 'Cylon' was almost a shuffle of the letters in 'Cally'. That made her bite back a bitter laugh, and try a different focus. Somewhere along the line, her brain decided to make that Tory.

Cally wasn’t sure, in hindsight, whether it was good or bad that she started envisioning her fellow Cylon in all their interactions together since that fateful day. It was comforting to connect the idea of Cylon with Tory, with all the good that they were together, but she was halfway through a recollection of one particular afternoon when she realized that she was hot. Hot and bothered, and with an enticing image now stuck in her head.

Well, it was all supposed to just _happen_ , right? The idea refused to leave Cally’s mind, intruding on her work in that crazy way that meant she just needed to deal with it. Halfway through her shift she reached for the phone and dialed the number that Tory had given her in case of an emergency with Nicky. She hadn’t done this in forever, and she wasn’t sure if it felt good or bad. She finally heard Tory's voice on the other end.

“Um, Tory, do you think you could get off work an hour early?”

“Is something wrong?”

Cally put a hand to her head, realizing she was going about it backwards. “No—wait yes—not that kind of...I feel kind of, you know, _frustrated_ today. And I thought maybe, instead of taking care of it myself, you might want to…meet me alone after work.”

A pause hung on the phone line. Cally bit her lip; this was so much easier in relationships more established. Although, ironically, Tory was living and sleeping with her and taking care of her child.

“Cally…” came Tory’s slow answer. “You realize that you called me in the middle of the day.”

“Is that bad?”

“Only if I’m supposed to actually focus on my work,” Tory said pointedly.

“Well, that’s why I called, because _I_ couldn’t,” Cally said, with a hint of a flush.

“So glad you decided to share the problem,” Tory said, amused snark hanging on her tone. “Gods, Cally, yes. Where?”

“The head just behind the hangar,” Cally said, heart speeding up for a few beats. “It’s always empty until the usual workday ends.”

Tory sighed over the line. “You’re making me do insane things, Cally Henderson.”

“Long as you like them,” Cally said, and found that a hint of a grin was on her face.

Not that it made the rest of the day much easier, but Cally didn’t mind so much, even as her body tingled with anticipation as she put her equipment away and walked past all the noise to open the hatch. Tory didn’t look like she quite knew what to do as Cally closed the hatch—the awkwardness was a good look on her, Cally thought.

“I’ve never actually done this in a bathroom before,” Cally breathed out, figuring that ‘hi’ was a little too pedestrian. Her fingers fiddled with the fringe of her tanks.

"Really?" Tory said. Then, chewing the inside of her lip, "Well, everything's a little easier if you just _do_ it, and don't talk about it."

"Okay," Cally said with a vague laugh. If Tory hadn't given her an encouraging look then, she wasn't sure she'd have moved forward, slipping the button free from her pants.

Tory managed to shimmy out of her clothes much faster, and Cally saw her chest rising and falling a little faster than it would on someone calm. Cally colored a little as she let her bra fall, followed Tory into the shower stall. She almost opened her mouth to ask what next, but Tory grabbed her face and kissed her quickly, and Cally realized that she'd been absolutely right about not talking.

It turned out that doing it in the shower was just like doing it anywhere else, once you forgot to think about things. Cally found herself backing Tory against the wall, dipping her head to suck at Tory's soft breasts, moaning eagerly and forgetting that they were technically in a public place. The unique twist when Tory flipped on the shower, sending warm water rippling down them both, just made Cally's blood run hot. It seemed almost familiar to nibble at Tory's skin, sucking the water rivulets, tasting her everywhere she could in her desperate need for this. And as Tory's fingers found her, slippery and heated, and were thrusting up into her with sharp accuracy, it didn't feel new.

Cally's brain overloaded just a little, and she ended up tripping and bringing them both crashing down onto the wet shower floor. But Tory just kissed her soundly, her voice vibrating against Cally's lips as her fingers still worked her into a frenzy, until Cally shivered and fell into happy pieces on the tiles and pulled Tory in and returned the favor until Tory groaned against her.

The warm water started turning lukewarm as they lay together, wet and calm.

"It almost feels like memory," Tory breathed out, as she slowly reached up to turn off the water.

Cally looked at her, nodding carefully as she pulled herself together. "It's weird."

Tory glanced back. "I like it," she admitted in a low tone.

Cally felt a smile hinting at the corner of her mouth, and she nodded, and pulled herself up to kiss Tory one last time. This had been much better than being alone.

***

Tigh actually had something to say at the next Cylon meeting, which were becoming ever more frequent as the weeks passed and they had nothing but themselves. He still kept going to Caprica, though, almost stubbornly.

"She made a weird look when I mentioned dreams," he said, frowning.

Tory almost made a non-committal hum, but saw Cally's frown.

"I was having Cylon dreams before I heard the song," Cally said, leaning over on her knees. "I didn't recognize them, but they were there."

Tigh grunted, and said he wasn't sure what that had anything to do with anything.

Tory bit her lip to keep from saying her theory before it was more than half-baked. She frowned and tapped her fingers on her knee long after Tigh went back to his duties, thinking about locked memories and the unconscious and dreams and what Baltar had said about the Cylons and the Final Five.

The cautious part of her mind told her to stay away. But as she watched Cally wash Nicky's hair, a little tightness in her lips as always after the meetings, she realized that some of them just couldn't stand not knowing. And if that was what was at stake, Tory could risk a little cover and a few awkward questions.

Still, she told no one when she forged Roslin's signature and went down to the brig to see Caprica Six the next day.

"You haven't said much about the last five models," Tory said, waving her hand for them to sit down.

"I don't know what answers I'm _supposed_ to have," Caprica said, with a closed look. "But I have none."

"Why would that be?" Tory asked.

Caprica laughed, a little chill. "Well, knowing why I shouldn't think about the Final Five would involve thinking about them, wouldn't it?"

"So does explaining why you don't think about them," Tory answered without thought.

But though Caprica had no words to say to that, the problem still remained. "We're not allowed to think of them," she said firmly, looking straight into Tory's eyes.

Tory probably shouldn't have held her gaze, probably shouldn't have given her the opportunity to see that it was more than an idle or political question. But after a few seconds she blinked and rose to her feet. "Well then."

She felt Caprica's eyes follow her out of the brig, and she sighed.

"You talked to her?" Cally asked, after dinner when they sat in their quarters.

"There has to be more than just 'I don't know'," Tory said, tapping her foot on the floor. "And I think there is. It's not, 'We don't want to think of the Final Five', as if we were outcasts."

"Is that a good thing?" Cally interrupted with a grimace.

Tory opened her mouth, then shut it, deciding that she didn't know what to comment. "In any case, it's 'We're not allowed to remember', as if they're too immature or lesser somehow. Like they revere us so much that they won't even speak our name."

"Tory, what if we're their leaders, what if it was all our idea?"

"No," Tory objected firmly, looking Cally in the eye. "They remember all of that. We can't be connected to it. Maybe we moved on before they did, became more human."

"Or maybe—"

"Cally, please stop trying to find all the things that could go wrong," Tory sighed as she interrupted. "Do you _want_ to make yourself lose it?"

Cally pressed her lips together. "No. Not really."

Tory leaned across the short gap between their chairs, kissed her lightly on the lips. "Then let's hold off on that until it's a necessity. For now, we are who we are."


	2. Chapter 2

Cally woke up early on their day off a week later, found Tory rocking a calm Nicky across the room.

"Go back to sleep," Tory whispered. "I got him."

Cally frowned, wondering if she was failing as a mother by not even waking up. She supposed that was the side effect of living at peace with someone. And in the end, it didn't seem wrong to yawn and curl comfortably up to go back to sleep.

"Do you ever feel like you're following good instincts about all this?" Cally asked her a couple days later, preparing for work.

"Yes," Tory said simply.

"No, I mean, where do those instincts come from?" Cally asked, stretching out a little.

"Our memories have to be in here somewhere." Tory plopped Nicky on the bed and started tying his little shoes. "So our subconscious must know that we knew us."

"Never felt that way around Athena, though," Cally said under her breath and splashed a little cold water on her face.

"It did around Sam," Tory said after a long pause.

Cally breathed in, and maybe, yes. She'd always just assumed that he was the sort of person you became friends with easily. Maybe both theories were true.

"Do you mind it, truly?" Tory looked her in the eye before they went to drop off Nicky.

"Not if it's our memories," Cally said, and kissed her. She meant it.

***

There were days when Tory wondered why she cared so much. Days when Cally kept her jaw clenched and wouldn't talk, and snapped at Tory for making small talk. Even as she glared back, as they both ignored everything but Nicky until they were too tired to be upset, she did care. She shouldn't, not with just the memories she had. But she did.

Tory had never believed in destiny, but when cold hard reality felt flat and against her, she told herself that a grand purpose among the Cylons would feel just right. And if that meant that she and Cally had been together before, were meant to be together again, then she didn't have to worry so much.

Of course, she wasn't entirely in control of her destiny. Cally might be settled enough that revealing their secret wasn't an issue, but there was always Tigh and his damned sense of guilt and duty. And Sam. They couldn't forget Sam, due back in just a couple weeks, hopefully with the route to Earth. Tory had to admit, she had bad days too, days when she felt like she was expected to run the entire Fleet as well as the Secret Cylon Society. Not like anyone ever told her this, but because they never took care of everything, of course it fell to her.

"Do you like Roslin?" Cally asked, interrupting one of Tory's dry rants about Fleet politics and expecting too much.

Tory's jaw hung, half open, as she caught her breath. "I did. Before all this I...wanted to be her."

"She did used to kick ass," Cally admitted.

Tory paused to smile at the vernacular, wished that things could be that easy in her own mind. "Well, apparently it goes both ways. She's just so stubborn, and I don't know what would change her mind. _I_ can't. And if she ever knew, I don't think she'd mind tossing me out an airlock, despite her curiosity about my personal life."

"But you do still like her, or you wouldn't care," Cally pointed out.

Tory sighed. "I don't care for me, I care for us, the Cylon us."

"Sure," Cally commented wryly.

She wasn't exactly right, though. It bugged Tory more than anything that she cared about the Fleet, not Roslin. She was doing her job for more than just a cover story, even if it was so very little more. It didn't feel right; it didn't feel Cylon-ish, if one diluted the idea to its essence.

"Sometimes I think maybe we can prove that being Cylons doesn't mean not being humans," Cally whispered to her once, after a well-needed frak that they'd achieved by dropping Nicky off at Dee's for the evening. "But never often enough."

And Tory realized that Cally was the key. On their own, they might have come to a conclusion. But together, with Nicky as the half-human between, they wavered on the edge.

"There's nothing that says that being Cylon can't mean that we're better than being human," Tory finally said back, softly stroking her arm as they lay together.

Cally giggled, amusement completely dry in it. "Yeah. Right."

"I mean it," Tory said, and kissed her cheek. "I think we're better than just human, not lesser or some kind of copy. We just need to figure it out."

Cally stared at her, but Tory thought that maybe she was starting to think it too. Tory hoped so; Tory wanted them to come to a new identity at the same time. When Cally snuggled against her and breathed out, she sounded a little more at peace than the last time. For now, Tory supposed that was good enough.

Finally, she thought there was a good sign. After a bad day, they both lay exhausted in bed and yet still talked.

"A week before Demetrius comes back," Cally groaned. "And whatever they've got, we have nothing."

"Because," Tory said, a weary tension in her voice, "we tried all the options and found nothing."

"I'll bet Baltar's still holding out."

Tory frowned. "I doubt it. He didn't seem like he was lying."

"Maybe he wasn't," Cally said, "but he wouldn't answer the questions you couldn't ask, would he?"

Tory grunted and rolled over, too tired.

"Maybe I should go talk to him. After all, he'd be too shocked to make any strange connections."

Tory frowned and said over her shoulder. "But what if he does?"

Silence reigned for a moment, almost long enough for Tory to doze off. "We could always kill him then," Cally said quietly. "Could find plenty of other justification."

Tory hadn't gone that way yet, but she hmmed her agreement.

"No, gods, what am I saying?" Cally said a little louder. "Sorry, I'm too tired, I shouldn't even be talking."

Tory was too tired to tell her that her idea wasn't the most outrageous thing she'd heard. And it wasn't all that wrong, either, Tory thought. But it was mostly forgotten in the morning, and life went on.

***

Cally found Baltar down in the mess hall, surrounded by his now-usual groupies. She settled herself firmly down in a seat nearby, and glared at him.

"Yes?" he asked, giving her a non-committal look.

"Just surprised why you think you're worth any of this," she said, indicating the people around.

"Gaius is—" started one of the young women, but Baltar put up a hand.

"I wonder, what would you have me do?" he asked, clearly trying to look open.

"Remember when you used to help research the Cylons, help us fight them?" Cally offered, but it sort of rankled in her that she had to use this tactic.

"The Cylons are not our concern," Baltar said idly.

Oddly enough, Cally could almost agree with him. But only in thought. "Doesn't it ever still cross your mind that they could have killed you? Didn't that matter?"

"Sometimes I think they did," Baltar murmured, not looking up.

Cally blinked. "What?"

"There's nothing to research anymore," he covered up his tracks with a slight stutter, looking back at her.

"You think you know everything?" Cally asked, trying to look a little less confrontational.

"I don't want to talk about this," Baltar said under his breath.

For some reason, Cally had a sense that her tactic was working, if she could just go to the next step. The lies could have felt so much worse coming from her mouth.

She waited out in the hall until he came out alone, going towards the head. Following him in, she tried to twist her very real need to know with something fake enough to fool him. "Baltar," she called before he entered a stall. "I just can't not think about it."

"What?" he asked, holding the door as if ready to duck behind if she went crazy.

"I look around the Fleet," Cally said, twisting her face and gesturing aimlessly with her hand. "And what if there are still Cylons here, Cylons we don't know? What if my friends are Cylons and don't know it? I think about it every time I look at anyone, and I can't stand it. So I can't understand why you aren't doing everything you can to find out the same thing."

"Because maybe I don't want to know," Baltar said hastily, moving a little closer with a kind of fear in his eyes. "Maybe I don't want to be like D'Anna, who died with blood hemorrhaging out."

Cally froze. "What?"

"She looked on the faces of the Final Five and then died," Baltar hissed. "I'm not sure I want to tempt that again, thank you very much." And with a confused last glance at her, he turned into the stall and shut the door loudly.

Cally couldn't feel exactly satisfied when she talked to Tory again, Nicky settled in her lap.

"I can't believe you did that," Tory said, shaking her head.

"I didn't really interrogate him in the end. Gods, Tory, I can't think straight, what does it all mean?"

"I don't know if it means anything." Tory frowned, even as Nicky reached for her with a wet smile. "If D'Anna died, then she would just resurrect."

"But he was upset, maybe it was real death," Cally protested, feeling a little frightened. "What kind of people are we that we could kill someone with a thought?"

Tory's brow creased, but for a while she said nothing. Then, slowly, "The scriptures say in one passage that one dies after seeing the face of god."

Cally jerked upright, pulling Nicky to her, revulsion filling her mind. "We are not Cylon gods."

"We don't know that," Tory protested, frustrated. "And it would explain things."

"We're not," Cally said, shaking her head quickly, bouncing Nicky on her lap. "Cylon is one thing. But...no. No, no, no."

Tory held her tongue on the subject, even when they told Tigh.

"Godsfrakkit," he grumbled, but said nothing else.

Cally still wasn't so sure she was glad to have this something to report.

***

Demetrius skated back to the Fleet in the nick of time. With a baseship. If the Final Four were worrying about their behavior being noticed, this certainly solved that problem.

Tory didn't end up with Roslin when it happened, and Cally was off duty. By the time the returning mission came on board, they just missed everything. Tory walked into the hangar bay, and saw only Leoben and an Eight being watched by many marines.

"Why are they here?" Tory asked, trying to disguise that her heart was pattering a little faster than usual.

"We rebelled against our brothers." Leoben's eyes felt strange turned full on her.

"We want humanity, as much as we can have," the Eight said. "Natalie and Kara Thrace are vouching for a mission to destroy the Resurrection Hub."

Tory blinked. "Oh." This was huge, this was dangerously beyond what they needed at the moment.

With Tigh in the meeting with the Cylon and Fleet leaders, Tory made her way back to Cally in their quarters.

"Well, what is it?" Cally asked, hands clenched as she sat on the bed.

"They don't want resurrection, the Cylons who came in the basestar," Tory said, sighing. "They don't want to be Cylons anymore. They want the Fleet to help them take out the Hub."

Cally swallowed. "Maybe that's good? Maybe that means we won't have to lie much longer?"

Tory shook her head. "Why have something like resurrection if you just destroy it at the first chance? This is hasty—they're acting like children, and so just because they're bored of a toy, they'll get rid of it!" She flung her hand, not sure why it mattered so much.

Cally blinked. "What?"

Tory shook her head. "I don't know, maybe I'm overreacting." Cally's vague eyebrow raise seemed to confirm that.

A soft knock at the hatch had them both whipping their heads to it. Tory rose, brow creased, and opened the door. "Sam," she said, surprised.

He didn't look particularly glad to be back, or alive, standing there as if he had nowhere else to go, almost fidgeting in his military tanks (and was that blood on them?) But before he spoke he glanced over Tory's shoulder and saw Cally. His expression closed off.

"You haven't been told yet," Tory breathed out, realizing. She pulled him in by one arm, closing the door. "Sam, while you were gone...we discovered a fourth. Cally."

Sam's gaze darted shocked to Cally. "You're one of—?"

"Yeah, what a nice surprise, right?" Cally mock-waved her hand at him.

"I wasn't expecting that." Sam ran his hand through his hair as Tory locked the door and turned back to the room. "I think I was almost hoping that nothing had happened to you as well." He sighed.

"Nothing happened?" Tory objected. "Sam!"

He shook his head. "I meant...for us. I thought I might find out something, especially once we got to the basestar, but it was just a dead end. I was looking forward to getting back to something more normal." He sat down wearily next to Cally on the bed, and Tory pulled the chair over. Sam put his head in his hands, inhaling and exhaling slowly.

"So you weren't recognized, I assume," Tory broke the brief silence.

"No." Sam looked up after a moment. "But that's...that's what the mission's about. D'Anna knows us, but she's been boxed, so they have to find her."

 "Boxed," Tory breathed out. "I'd never considered that."

"That's when they don't resurrect, right?" Cally cautioned a guess.

Sam nodded. "She wasn't allowed to know who we were. And since the Hybrid said that we can lead everyone to Earth, now these Cylons are okay with breaking that rule."

"We don't know the way to Earth," Cally protested.

"My thoughts exactly." Sam gestured dryly.

"And you said you learned nothing," Tory scoffed. She looked at Cally for a few moments, as if it would all coalesce if she just pondered it a little longer. So the Cylons wanted to know the Final Five, destroy resurrection, and go to Earth. Tory wasn't sure she could foresee a future in which those three belonged in the same plan.

"You okay, Sam?" Cally's voice had suddenly lost the snark and tension alike.

Tory tipped her gaze back up, saw Sam's face still in his hands.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he intoned, not looking at them. "My wife might shoot me in the head in a few days, and hey, I still made a man lose his leg to protect her, but I'm fine."

Cally and Tory's glances met briefly, sharp worry suddenly reflected in each.

"Who got hurt?" Cally ventured to ask.

"Gaeta." The word came out pained.

Tory frowned. "What happened?"

"Mutiny, against Kara," Sam explained, slowly lifting his head again, eyes dark and twisted. "But I—really don't want to talk about it. What happened with...Cally, how did you find out about this?"

"Heard the song." Cally shrugged. "Tory heard it too, found me, explained what happened with you. Not that strange."

Tory notice the selective memory on her partner's side, but kept silent.

"Well, everything seems a bit stranger when you're right in the middle of a crazy—" Sam broke off, then shook his head, biting down on his jaw. "Never mind. Glad to know you're with us, though I wouldn't have wished it on anyone." He reached out his hand with an attempt at a smile.

Cally smiled back and shook it. "It's not as bad as I thought."

"Well, at least two of you can be on board with that." Sam glanced up at Tory for a second. Then he frowned. "So, Nicky, he's like Hera, then?"

Cally paused, and in the pause Tory's mind flitted through all the choices they had, and then realized that if Sam was fishing for a distraction then the full truth would be best. She managed to convey it to Cally in a moment's shared eye contact, and Cally followed through.

"He's a full Cylon, actually."

Sam sat up straighter. "So their big plan to have children...I didn't realize it would work. But Galen isn't..." he trailed off awkwardly.

"No," Cally said slowly. She seemed to chew the inside of her cheek, and Tory knew why she hesitated, with Sam looking like he was barely hanging on. But he needed that jolt to the reality of this, needed to be drawn out of this almost shock he was still stuck in. "He's actually yours, Sam."

Sam stared at her.

"I guess it makes more sense since we're both Cylons." Cally didn't let the silence hang on too long.

"Gods," Sam whispered, eyes falling to Nicky as he played on the floor.

"No one knows," Tory put in as Cally didn't have words immediately.

"Not even Cottle, he just knows that it isn't Chief's, since I had the test done a while back," Cally said, then hesitantly put a hand to Sam's back as he slumped over his knees. "Sam?"

"It's been a tough couple months," Sam said, voice strained.

"Oh," Cally said, chagrined.

"You don't need to worry about it," Tory hastened to say with a furrowed brow. "We just...you should know, that's all. Cally and I have it all covered."

"Still feels like another betrayal to add to the list." Sam's last word came out bitterly.

Tory felt slightly peeved at that, more than she felt guilty for bringing the subject up too soon. "Nonsense," she said smoothly. "We haven't betrayed anyone, and those who might think it...well, it's their problem. You're doing what you've always done, Sam."

"And you did all you had to here," Cally said firmly, pushing his shoulder until he looked up and met her eyes. "I have Nicky because of you—and Tory and I have everything we need to take care of him."

Tory felt her slight irritation leave on seeing the emptiness in Sam's eyes, the weariness. She realized that he'd been stuck on a ship, keeping his secret, for far too long than was good for a person. She wondered what he even thought of his secret, since there hadn't been much time to talk.

Finally, he sat up a little straighter and breathed out. His eyes rested on Nicky for a few long seconds, then drew back up to glance awkwardly between the two of them. "Can I hold him?"

Cally laughed, but Tory could see it was more for his benefit, as were her quick words, "Of course."

For a while they just sat, as Sam moved slowly to the floor, sitting there and smiling weakly at Nicky. The child was oblivious to the worry, and climbed onto Sam's lap to eagerly show him a viper toy—Cally had told Tory, in one of their many conversations, that Sam had visited them whenever he came over to Galactica to see Kara. Nicky still remembered him, and Sam exhaled shakily as he just held him, brow deeply creased in the shared moment of silence.

There was a look of sadness, almost detached, when he raised his head. "He's great," Sam said quietly.

Cally smiled at him, and then at Tory, barely covering up the worry lines at the corners of her eyes. "Yeah."

"So, you didn't by any chance discover the answer to our existence while I was gone, did you?" Sam asked, taking a deep breath as he put a mask over his face and changed the subject.

Tory knew that she and Cally were probably having the same thought, and though Cally still hated the idea of being Cylon leaders, Tory wasn't ready to dismiss it yet. "Well..." she started.

"Not exactly," Cally cut in.

But Sam was already distracted, and that was enough. They might not have long before something big would go down, and Tory realized that she and Cally being united would not be enough. Even if he hadn't been their friend, they might need him, even if just to stand his ground with whatever was decided. It was time to make sure that everyone was clear about everything.


	3. Chapter 3

Things were happening in the world, things that seemed to wipe aside any normal life that had been achieved. The three of them, Cally, Tory, and Sam, didn't sit so much worrying as much as they brooded. Sam's foot kept tapping on the floor, and Cally's hands twitched, as she felt that this was becoming more than just an issue of identity.

Tigh came to their quarters some time after they'd finished explaining all the vague theories to Sam. If he noticed that he was the only one actually worried, he didn't pause to give it mind.

"Well, we had to come to a triple cross some day," he droned out. He looked around for a second, noticed that there wasn't another chair, and then growled, "What the frak are we meeting in _here_ for? Is there a neon sign advertising us outside, or did you forget to mark that off of your list of suspicious things to accomplish."

Tory raised her eyebrows, but Cally was glad she didn't answer, caught off guard by Tigh's first statement. "What happened?" she asked.

"We're cheating the rebels out of the Three," Tigh explained, a scowl on his face to mask the conflict in his eyes. "So that only the president and Adama will know who we are, until we get to Earth."

Cally's brow narrowed.

"Yeah, that's complicated," Sam sighed, still sitting on the floor, foot tapping.

"What does this all involve, besides them using us as hostages eventually?" Tory asked, with a dry intonation over the ironic meaning.

"We load vipers onto their basestar, board the Resurrection Hub, unbox D'Anna while we hold off the Raiders, and then once we've got her we blow the Resurrection Hub to frakking pieces and don't give them D'Anna. Assuming we don't die in the process." Tigh snorted at the end.

"The only reason they're unboxing her is to discover us?" Cally wasn't sure why she felt halfway horrified.

Tigh raised an eyebrow. "Some loyalty to kind they have."

But Cally was picturing everything in her head, and her skin started to itch with frustration. The alliance was strange enough, even with the distrust beneath it, but the purpose of it hit her hard. "No, we're not going to triple cross anyone. It's one thing to not tell anyone because they'd airlock us, it's another to let them go get people killed for an answer that we already have." She felt her voice rising, stood to her feet and crossed her arms. "Look at it!"

They all turned to her, confused for a second.

Cally looked to Tory, holding her gaze as she figured that surely she'd understand. "We want to survive, right? But not by killing other people, I thought we didn't have to say that. So we can't even consider letting them take on this dangerous of a mission." She couldn't be the only one who saw the redundancy of the danger.

Tory breathed out, frowning and crossing her arms. "I didn't think of it like that. Perhaps it's too high a price to pay for secrecy."

"What exactly are you suggesting?" Tigh asked slowly and his back straightened tensely.

Cally swallowed and bit her lip, because she didn't have a suggestion, just an objection. It wasn't exactly her job to come up with plans.

"She's saying we can't let this happen," Tory came in, and Cally could see the wheels turning in her mind. "I don't think we should let them destroy resurrection at all, but there's no feasible way to counter that. I've thought it through. But if they're going to do that, then we might as well make the body count small. So, if we can find a way to do it right, we might be able to join the Cylons and tell them, and by default the Fleet, who we are."

Cally nodded shortly, reaching down to scoop up Nicky who was starting to fuss. Sam joined them in the circle, all with arms crossed.

Tigh scoffed. "Who—on either side—would believe we weren't pulling some stunt?"

"Everyone," Sam said darkly before Cally or Tory could respond. "Look at us."

Cally kept biting her lip as there was a moment of silence. It would be too outrageous to be rejected as a lie, the four of them. One of them, maybe, but of all the odd groups that would never ally together...

"I'm not a _Cylon_ ," Tigh said sharply after a moment. "I am Saul Tigh, and I'm not going to hide behind their skirts even if it is to save the Fleet."

Cally saw Tory bristle, probably for the same offended feeling that was now bothering her. Sam's face was unreadable.

"But I should have admitted this a long time ago," Tigh continued, tone suddenly low and changed, his face set.

Cally wasn't that surprised. Whatever happened to him, he just needed to figure out where his loyalties worked in the scheme. Like her, the safety of the Fleet was more important than a little personal safety. Except—she wasn't trying to get killed, that wouldn't happen now, not when the other Cylons were so desperate to have them. Cally glanced at Tory, and whatever their differing opinions on what it meant to be Cylon, they could at least agree on that last point now. Safety was within their grasp, and so the burden of secrecy felt worse because of the reasonable alternative.

Exhaling shortly, Tigh turned to leave the room.

"Wait," Tory said, putting up her hand.

"I just need a drink," Tigh grumbled and paused to glare at her, before leaving and shutting the hatch behind.

Tory sighed and shook her head.

"Look," Sam said suddenly, voice tight. Cally turned to him and saw the stress all over his face again, the shaken look making him look so different from the Sam she'd known for the rest of their friendship. "I spent time on that baseship," he continued, looking them both in the eye by turn. "I don't belong there. I'm...I want what you've found, to be what you are no matter where that is. But Kara..." His face twisted and he turned, hitting the wall by his head with an angry fist. "I don't want this."

"Sam," Cally felt herself say, without thinking first as she felt pained for him. She wondered if she'd looked like that only a few weeks ago—and the human Fleet seemed so cruel when it could do this to them, innocent people. She knew, though, that he'd mentioned the exact point that was relevant; as always, it was Kara. "This is all so weird now," she admitted, even as he looked down at the floor, "but it's not the way things were, remember. Kara, Kara has accepted Athena, and Athena always _knew_ she was lying."

"I know that," Sam said, giving her a weary look. "I almost thought that would be enough, that first day. But she told me straight to my face that if I turned out to be a Cylon, she'd kill me."

Tory made a small hum, and Cally wasn't surprised either. But looking at the quiet despair on Sam's face, she wasn't going to just stand there and accept it. "When? When did she say this?"

"Right after she came back," Sam said after a blink, as if trying to remember an irrelevant point.

Cally laughed. She hadn't expected the perfect answer.

Sam didn't look appreciative, and Tory frowned at her.

"Sam," Cally said, almost chiding, wondering if (with Tory thinking like a Cylon and Tigh and Sam still stuck feeling human) she was the only one who managed to see both sides of the equation. "She _died_ and came back, she was a little jumpy, okay? She might kill you if she thought you betrayed her as a Cylon, but just being one? Kara doesn't do that. And I know you both, Sam, and I know I'm biased now, but I don't see it happening."

Tory nodded. "You have to tell her. And not just for us."

Sam didn't look much more sure of anything, and groaned quietly as he grimaced. He gave a brief nod. "I know," he said resignedly. It was almost like Tigh, the way the guilt spread over his face to be followed by determination, no longer comfortable doing things he would hate later. He breathed in deeply, looked Cally in the eye as he said, with that light tone to hide the pain, "Probably shouldn't tell her in the same conversation I tell her about Nicky."

Tory laughed dryly. "No, that would be a bad idea."

"That one can wait for a while," Cally said seriously, reaching out to rub his shoulder, his muscles still tense. "For now, just figure on what's going to matter most to her."

He made a dark noise, running his hand over his face one last time.

"You'll be safe with us," Tory added after a second.

"No," Sam said, barely audible as he stared off into nothing. "No, I won't be."

He followed Tigh out the door a few moments later, without another word.

Cally felt almost guilty for their sake, his and Tigh's. "For once, I'm glad I don't have that much," she said quietly to Tory.

"They'll be fine," Tory murmured, but the crease of her brow indicated that she needed to convince herself as well. "As long as everything is planned right. We don't have much time before everything is finalized. I'll go to Roslin, you start thinking about the most unsuspicious way we can get onto the basestar."

Cally nodded. "I have hangar duty in a couple hours, so that would be a good time."

Tory came over and paused to brush a quick kiss across her cheek. "Good, I'll keep that in mind."

They left their quarters, and even though now there was a true conspiracy, Cally felt more than ever that justice was about ready to be served. Whatever happened—and she was inclined to believe that it wouldn't be as bad as predicted.

***

Tory started putting plans into place on the way to the president, and it seemed as if the web of stress and plots narrowed and became too dense to manage. The rebel Cylons convened on their basestar, the humans bustled frantically about their ship. Tory felt the irony. Who should be worrying for their lives, the tiny band of universally-hated beings with one damaged ship to their name, or the privileged masses of humanity?

Tory contacted Colonel Tigh about exact timing of everything, and she could feel the flux of schemes and opinions, off-put by the rebels. She knew that she and the other Four were going to drive the point home. A choice would be facing the Fleet, and despite Tory’s gut feeling that said that instant death was unlikely, neither was instant alliance.

She pretended to do her work as she waited for the time that Cally had stated, the time when a Raptor would be standing by. Cally would fly them out; unlike the Galactica, the basestar’s docking system should be usable even by someone with her limited talents. Tory just wanted the basestar and its occupants at her back. Her hands moved swiftly among the papers and folders, eyes catching on the black scrawl of signatures that were symbols of something she no longer believed in.

Roslin came in as Tory waited the last few minutes. “There you are,” she said, sounding cool in her stress.

“Child issues,” Tory said, the first thing that came to mind as she shrugged apologetically. Not long for this cover to have to work.

“I hope you’re not letting the personal interfere with your work,” Roslin said as she gave her a tight eye.

Tory stood, setting the last folder on the table and drawing her hand away as if she didn't want it to sully her fingers any longer. She looked straight into Roslin’s eyes. “Actually,” she kept her tone slow and smooth. “Yes, I am.”

If Roslin didn’t seem to recognize Tory and the lack of apology that accompanied her, she didn’t betray it with words. She stood, spine erect and body iron-strong, even wasting away from the inside. Tory continued to look at her, saw the mask there, knew that there was a good chance for them all that under it was someone who might change her mind. She wouldn’t express it, but she could. Maybe.

“But there is something else.” Tory caught Roslin's gaze again. “I’m leaving.”

“Where to?” Roslin asked with a frown.

Tory gave her a small smile. “Since I’ve resigned, I’m not sure I have to tell you any of that anymore. You’ll understand eventually.”

She felt Roslin’s eyes follow her out of the room and knew that she left the part of her that was loyal to the Colonial Fleet with that folder on the table.

***

Time ticked away as Cally loaded her essentials into a bag. Not much. Nothing from her old life, the human life she could reject as some kind of lie. Clothes, food, things for Nicky, these were what made her calm and at home. What she held in her head mattered more than what was around her.

But still, as she watched Nicky sit unconcerned on the bed, her breath kept choking in her throat and she had to stand, brushing back her bangs over and over as she tried to see what was next. Betrayal, that was what came next. Leaving a ship, and maybe never coming back, maybe never being allowed to.

When a knock came at the door, she almost snapped without thinking, but it was only Sam.

“It’s almost time,” she protested, as he moved into the room, his tall frame more solid in resolve than hers.

“I know,” he said, “Do you need help?”

She shook her head, not rejecting, just not sure what she wanted to tell him. Looking at him, though, there was something there that reminded her of Tory and her determinism. “Can you grab Nicky’s stuff from that cupboard?”

Sam nodded, moved without pause or question. Cally dug out one of the boxes under the bed, willing her hands not to shake as she yanked off the lid, dug around for her non-military clothes, replacing the tanks on her bed with them. It had to be a clean break. She’d finally stuffed the last piece in when Sam brought over the bag he’d packed, zipping it and placing it next to hers on the bed.

“I’m going to Kara.” He didn't look at her.

She didn’t look back, just stood shoulder to shoulder with him as she took a deep breath and prepared to move.

“If something happens,” Sam said under his breath, reaching out a hand to brush Nicky’s foot, but nothing more, “you’ll tell everyone that I never meant to…for any harm, or deception, or anything? Let them all have my apologies?”

Cally hated the sharp tension she could hear in the back of his throat as he spoke. She swallowed and nodded to him, then pulled him down and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Good luck, Sam,” she said, squeezing him close for a second. “You know we wouldn’t do this if we thought…”

“No, I know you better than that,” he said with an attempt at warmth, hugging her back with one arm for a second. “You and Tory be careful, if you can.”

Cally twisted her mouth in what almost turned into a smile, and kissed his cheek as she pulled back. She saw his face steel as he inhaled deeply and turned to leave. Cradling Nicky close to her breast, she grabbed the two small bags and stood still for a second. She had a couple minutes to get down to the Raptor, and then everything would change.

Nicky had started chewing on his fist, making hesitant noises as if all the worry had finally gotten to him too. He felt like a stone in Cally's arms as she swung the two packed bags over one shoulder and used the other to support him on her hip. Her breaths came just a little awkwardly, sudden panicky memories reminding her that she was a machine, a robot, a copy, and she shouldn't be so content about it. It took all her willpower to push back and re-find the peace that felt _right_.

Still, her steps felt heavy as she walked down to the hangar. Tory joined her just a few steps before the door, mentioned under her breath that she had seen Tigh walking past her towards Adama.

"Sam's going to Kara," Cally said back as they entered the backside of the bay, nearly barren as planned.

The chaotic world of Galactica was only a hundred yards away, still unaware of just who was about to leave it, and Tory's hand resting at Cally's waist as they hurried to the unnoticed empty Raptor was the only thing calming Cally's pitter-patter of a heartbeat. The door closed behind them, Tory took Nicky, and suddenly it was up to Cally.

She bit down hard on her lip, but the controls were almost familiar to her eyes—she took the pilot's seat for nearly the first time, but the silence of this inner space held her in one piece. It wasn't based on truth, but it helped to repeat the mantra to herself: _I am one of the Final Five, I can handle anything._ Her small hands gripped the controls, and then she breathed out and reached up to flip the proper switches and buttons.

"Well?" Tory asked from behind her, tense at this moment that their entire plan rested on.

"Got it," Cally gasped out, and brought the engine to life.

But though Tory spoke no doubt, both their sighs fell like avalanches of discarded worry when Cally actually got the Raptor inching towards the airlock. She didn't think about the people on the hangar deck, no doubt running frantically and calling in the anomaly. She didn't think about specific people definitely. She thought of escape.

The settings she'd programmed in worked almost perfectly, and when the door closed behind their ship, Cally managed to pull the Raptor into the airlock with only a slight bump. And then, almost like magic, the outer door opened and she was out in space. Her heart hammered away in her chest but she wouldn't need to fly this for long. The basestar hung in the air and for the first time it almost looked inviting.

Space had no sound, and so only the noises of breathing surrounded all three of them as Cally roughly banked the ship around and into the Cylon hangar. She had no idea what calls had gone out, or what the Fleet was saying to each other and to her people, but the organic bay doors opened for the Raptor and when she touched the ship down they closed behind her like leaves on a tree branch.

"We're here," Tory breathed out, rubbing Cally's tense shoulder with one hand as they sat still for a few seconds.

"Gotta get out of here and get it over with." Cally almost leapt from the pilot's seat. She opened the Raptor door and stood for a second. The Cylon hangar lay empty and mechanic for the moment, but she knew it wouldn't last for long. "What are we going to say?"

"Don't worry," Tory said, handing Nicky back to her again.

After living with her for all this time, Cally could hardly not put a name to Tory's expression, and no one could worry after seeing that look, not if Tory was on your side. She breathed in the empty air of the ship and prepared herself for...everything tense and confusing but good in the end.

Footsteps sounded loudly in the distance before two Eights and Leoben walked from a hall, faces tight and Centurions following with weapons raised.

Tory raised her hand and walked forward to meet them, a compact figure in a simple blue suit when facing the unbreakable strength before her. But somehow, watching her, Cally still felt safe.

"What are you doing here?" Leoben asked, eyes darkly glittering despite the confusion. "This was not agreed on."

"No, it wasn't." Tory kept her hand there, but the gesture of surrender meant little compared to her tall bearing and the purpose in her words. "But we have something we need to tell you."

She gestured back for Cally to come forward, and she did, watching the other human Cylons closely as they finally stood just a few paces apart. For a second she felt detached, but Tory's brown eyes met hers for a second, the exhilaration of anticipation bright in them. Cally had to inhale quickly to keep from losing her breath, and when they both looked back at Leoben and the Eights, somehow they weren't intruders on this scene. Even the scanning red lights of the Centurions' eyes didn't feel invasive, but searching in a welcome way.

"Back when your fleet attacked at the nebula, we heard music that woke us up and made us realize," Tory said, eyes slowly moving from Cylon to Cylon. "We're Cylons. We're two of your Final Five."

Cally swallowed, and the last of her tension went down with the lump in her throat. No more lies. The "what next?" worry would be slower in coming than she would have guessed, maybe too slow as their plan galloped towards denouement.


	4. Chapter 4

Tory tried not to let her mind wander as they were ushered towards the control center of the basestar, hasty and almost ginger at the same time. It made her think of children out of their element, though she couldn't put a finger on the exact cause. The smooth walls, the hard light, the pulsing beat of life in the very ship itself, all crowded her mind and made her want to explore. It was insane—she was here to make a practical alliance, that was all.

Natalie wasn't there when Tory and Cally were finally brought in, but there were two other Sixes and another Leoben (Two). An Eight had her hand submerged in the datafont goo, concern twisting her face; another one stood absently by.

"What is it?" one of the Sixes asked without looking up. "The news from Galactica is confusing."

"They claim to be two of the Final Five." Leoben stepped forward, leaving Cally and Tory with two Centurions at their back.

"What?" asked the Eight who just stood, now suddenly straighter.

Tory saw all their bright eyes turned sharply on her and Cally. "We know it seems unlikely." It was almost a shrug.

"Is this some kind of joke?" One of the Sixes' lips pursed tightly, hand clenching on the edge of the datafont.

"It's not." Tory walked a few steps forward, unafraid. The other Cylons seem to draw closer to each other, not out of fear, but as if to communicate through presence alone. "We need to speak to your leader, to Natalie, please."

"No, no," said the first Six, raising her hand. "We aren't going to bother her for some little problem like this, not before we know what's going on." She glanced at Leoben.

"But we don't know how the Final Five are different from us," he protested under his breath.

"We can start with the basics." The Six waved her hand at Tory, though Tory could see that some of her command wasn't coming naturally. "Try this," she said, and kept her eyes on them as she put her hand into the goo, symbols rising in the light streams in front of her.

Tory didn't smirk but she had to repress one; this would be fine, she knew in some way. She could taste home on the air she breathed in, and walked forward. Fingers tense, she let them fall into the shining liquid, and let her breath out slowly.

Being Cylon had never been fully real before that moment. She believed it, but now, as information and symbols crashed into her mind and flooded it, one of her knees buckled with the wash of certainty. "God," she whispered, trying to make sense of the chaos.

"She can...?" asked one of the Eights just beyond her periphery.

Tory could feel the ship at her reach, could feel a presence beneath her. Her thoughts followed the sensory data and found Galactica, found the rush of radio transmissions surrounding it. "I can contact Natalie from this."

"No, wait," Leoben said. He put a hand on hers, gently pulling it back.

Tory breathed in sharply, looking at him and knowing that both of them were seeing through different eyes than they had before.

"We must speak to the Hybrid first."

"Leoben!" protested one of the Sixes.

"It is not disrespect," he countered, turning towards her. "If they are..." he turned back with awe in his eyes, "then her prophecies were true, and maybe we should hear more."

Tory glanced back, saw Cally's arms tightly around Nicky and twisted emotion in her eyes. An Eight was staring at them, looking about ready to fall on her knees and beg for forgiveness. Tory had known that something like this could happen, but she wasn't quite ready for it. "Yes, we should," she said absently, not sure what exactly was under discussion.

"Wait," said the other Six. "How do you know who you are? Who are you?" The words came hesitant, tone wavering between curiosity and respectful tact.

"We know barely more than you," Tory admitted. "But we had a vision, and we know we are two of you."

"No, not of us," said the Eight who had yet to speak. Her eyes shone as she stepped forward, reaching out a hand. "You are beyond us."

Tory's eyes swung back to Cally helplessly, and she saw a slight relief on Cally's face, very much an 'I told you so' expression. This reality wasn't as comfortable as the theory on Galactica had been. "We don't have much time," she said, breathing in and trying to remember her original plan. "Galactica knows."

"Right," the first Six said, crossing her arms. "Leoben, hurry with this, we need to make a move."

"Come," Leoben said, taking Tory's hand and walking towards the door. "Both of you, come. There is someone you should meet."

***

It was everything Cally thought it would be. The way they looked at her, as if she was _not_ the one who barely accepted Athena as a person, let alone human. They thought of her as special, now. To her, everything around was special, the scary strange kind of special that sent more panic to her when she saw Tory almost collapse at the datafont. Downloading was one thing, this communication was another.

But she looked into the faces of the Cylons and felt no fear. Not from them, not of them, nothing. After so many weeks of being wary, this was the good kind of special. If only that Eight wouldn't look at her like she was a god, even with Nicky drooling all down her shirt front.

She could almost hear the sound of the ship around them, rumbling and creaking but not like an old wreck. Leoben led them down into the underbelly, into a room where the only light breaking the shadows flooded from a tub in the center. Cally tensed, wondering if this was where one downloaded. Tory's hand was on her shoulder a second later, soft and caressing, and they still walked forward. Cally was scrabbling for needed calm.

"This is a Hybrid," Leoben explained as they stood before the tub, looking down at the woman who spoke in monotone. "She controls our ship and sees into the space between life and death."

"This is what gave you the prophecy about us?" Cally asked.

Tory knelt by the Hybrid, but Cally had to shift her weight from foot to foot, and all Leoben did was nod as if he was speechless with everything else. Well, at least she had something in common with him.

"She's beautiful," whispered Tory.

Cally blinked. That wasn't what a human would say—she sounded like what they expected her and Cally to be. Glancing to Leoben, she saw the satisfied relief in his eyes, and wondered if they would continue in that pattern.

She didn't hear what the Hybrid said, but no one seemed to be listening to that, just watching the play of lights on Tory's face that seemed natural now. She rose, turning to face them, face set. "We need to contact the Fleet," she said, folding her arms. "Not just Natalie. There are others of the Final Five who should have revealed themselves by now, so some kind of agreement must be reached."

Leoben seemed to choke on the sudden realization that all their dreams were coming true, but were partly in the hands of the humans.

The first thing Cally noticed as they went back to the control center was that the Centurions had lost their weapons, and their long fingers splayed out more comfortingly. Cally's eyes darted up to the tall bullet-heads, but they didn't seem to register her discomfort, only the identity that no one was denying anymore.

It still felt strange to look at the Eights, and now more of them stood by, smiling at her like she was some distant relative—and she was that, she supposed, but a murderous one to them, in a sense. Nicky cooed in her arms, and Cally pushed away the troubling thoughts and tried to smile back, because none of that could be her problem right now.

"Here," one of the Sixes said, gesturing for Tory to step up to the datafont. "Find our radio frequency, and then you can contact Natalie yourself."

Tory's reassuring smile to Cally was just like every other face in the room, and she stepped eagerly forward, fingers rushing back towards that communication liquid. She breathed in sharply as the lights spun visibly, but only a few seconds later they heard the sound.

 _"What is it?"_

Cally guessed that the Six-ish sounding voice was Natalie.

"The Final Five are revealing themselves," Leoben said, stepping forward and standing by Tory.

 _"What?"_ Natalie's word came out like a gasping breath. _"How did you know?"_  
 "How do you?" Leoben frowned.

 _"Colonel Tigh has just proclaimed his identity on this ship,"_ Natalie said. _"Everything is in a mess."_

"It's true," Tory said in answer to the gasps of shock at _Tigh_ , of all people. "I am Tory Foster—Cally Henderson and I are both from the Five as well, and we are here on your baseship to seek asylum. For all of us."

Cally felt a pang as she realized that no one had mentioned Sam yet, just Tigh. "Is it safe?"

 _"No one's been hurt yet. But this means..."_

"We don't know the way to Earth." Tory added no inflection, just let the blunt words out. "We barely know what we are; our memories are gone."

 _"The president has returned with a statement,"_ Natalie said after a second.

Tory reached behind her for Cally, and Cally took her hand and stepped in, breathing deeply as their fingers tangled. Nicky was thankfully silent, staring around him with wide blue eyes shining with all these new lights. After all, all his life he'd been on Galactica.

Roslin's voice didn't sound so friendly over the radio, cold and crackling. _"I assume that I am speaking to everyone both on this ship and among the Cylons, Lt. Hoshi? This development is obviously a shock to all of us, and to say that a clear decision is available would be a lie. However, given our two histories, I hope everyone understands that we can't be blithe about this issue. There will be no blanket amnesty until at the very least all of the Final Five are known and Earth has been found."_

Cally saw the other Cylons look to Tory to speak, and she shuddered to realize how quickly they'd been accepted.

"This is shady," Tory said bluntly over the radio. "But I should have expected that from you."

 _"It is protecting our interests, which are in a much more unstable state than...yours,"_ Roslin answered, the last word coming out as if she hated to say it.

 _"President?"_

Cally knew that voice breaking in—it was Kara. She bit her lip, worried again.

 _"Captain Thrace?"_

 _"I'm on one of the lower decks,"_ Kara said, slowly and as if from another world entirely. _"Anders has...he's one of the Final Five Cylons, he says."_

If Cally didn't know better, she would have thought from the sound of her voice that Kara had just been gutted. Tory gripped Cally's hand, and the other Cylons seemed to jerk in reaction.

"It's two against two, but where is the Fifth?" asked the main Six under her breath.

"We don't know," Tory told her. Her fingers clenched a little in the goo. "President," she said into the radio at last. "The last thing we want is for any hasty decisions. We assume that you won't take any while we catch our bearings."

 _"I hope my trust in you to be reasonable is not as misplaced as my other trust, Tory,"_ Roslin said.

"You have no cause to worry," Tory said smoothly. Silence reigned for a few seconds, then she withdrew her hand from the goo to cut off the connection.

"They have two of us," one of the Eights said, breathless. "They could be airlocked."

"No," Tory said, crossing her arms but not frowning. "They won't, not yet. We have a little time."

"Natalie will be coming back to the ship now," Leoben said, looking to Tory and Cally. "Let's have all the facts ready to relate to her when she gets here."

Tory took a deep breath to speak, but Cally just kept bouncing Nicky on her hip, and was deeply grateful that she didn't have to speak. No one was dead yet, but the line they'd crossed seemed more drastic now.

***

The Cylons didn't have seats. Cally seemed uncomfortable with it, but Tory sensed the power of it and felt ready as soon as Natalie walked in the room with a drawn face.

"What is going on?" Natalie asked first, her body language saying that she was affronted by being caught off guard with all this.

"If you want us and the other two safe, you'll need to get to Roslin first," Tory said. "Adama will follow that."  
 "Did you plan this?" Natalie asked, eyes tight on Tory and then Cally.

Tory raised an eyebrow.

"The chaos is not helping," Natalie commented. She stood just across the datafont from Tory and took a deep breath. "So, Roslin."

"Yes," Tory said, not letting herself get distracted by how eerily familiar Natalie seemed. "She's most worried about subterfuge, which makes the chaos worth it, believe me. If we're open and blunt, she'll be likely to trust us."

"Not suspect a plan underneath?"

Tory shook her head. "She wouldn't think of it as the Cylon way."

Natalie smirked. "Nice to know there's a strategy we could use. But for now, yes, we need full diplomacy. So what do we ask?"

Tory smiled tightly at her, and the unspoken assumption of being on the same side gave her a rush of good feeling. "Demand a full audience, one party to another. We discuss terms in person, where we can see that Tigh and Anders are still safe."

Natalie nodded, brow furrowed. "How much do you think they want to airlock you?"

Tory swallowed. It wasn't a question she had answered yet. "I don't think they have a reason yet. It's not an automatic response to the word Cylon anymore, as your treatment should be proof of."

"It's underlying everything, though," Natalie said, breathing out.

"Then we need to move quickly before they take the ambiguity to fall back on old habits." Tory leaned in.

Natalie nodded slowly. "We'll take the Heavy Raider to Galactica as soon as the request is approved."

They both nodded, and a tiny thrill ran through Tory. She wouldn't have admitted it out loud, but Natalie's unspoken respect meant far more to her than the Eights wide-eyed wonder and metaphorical welcoming arms.

As Natalie got on the radio to speak to Roslin, Tory walked over to Cally. "How are you?" she asked under her breath.

"I don't know what they're thinking." Cally shook her head, jaw tense. Tory somehow knew that she meant the Fleet, that 'them' was no longer what was here. "I can't guess what they'll do, as if they're some kind of alien. When did that happen, Tory?"

Tory laid her arm around Cally's shoulder, tucking Cally's head into the crook of her neck. "I've got it. We're going to be fine. There isn't time for it to go wrong, I'm sure of it. And then we'll be here, and we can't be alien to ourselves."

"I didn't think what it would be like from the other side, that's all," Cally said against Tory's shoulder, her free arm squeezing Tory's waist for a second.

Tory said nothing, just held on for a few more seconds.

Natalie had a light in her eyes when finally she walked over to the two of them, the first hint of anything but determination on her face. She gave them half a dry smile. "They agreed to the terms. We come unarmed, in one Heavy Raider, just one representative from each model. And I don't think they'd considered the airlock yet, when I mentioned that I wanted to see the other two at the meeting."

Tory nodded with a bit of relief.

"Do you realize what you mean to us?" Natalie asked, resting her hand gently on each of their shoulders.

Tory felt Cally shake her head.

Natalie's small smile broadened just a little, but she didn't say another word. "Here, our ship is this way. Leoben, you and Nora will be accompanying me again." She waved a hand to the Two and the Eight as she started walking for the door.

"Here goes," Cally said, giving Tory a slight nudge before she let go and stood up straight.

One of the other Eights approached them before they left the room. "Don't risk the child," she said with a furrowed brow, nodding to Nicky.

Tory and Cally shared a look, but Tory was gratified by Cally's reluctant but firm offering of her child to the Eight. There was so much importance in this moment, and of all the people they could trust...well, Cally was realizing just what a family they had now.

***

Cally had never seen a diplomatic meeting up close and personal before, but she imagined that they were not usually this distracted. As soon as she and the other Cylons had disembarked, they noticed the figurative lines drawn.

Tigh and Sam stood at the left, unbound but with a few marines to the right and behind them. Further to the right, Adama and Roslin, firm as always and more so as a pair. Zarek stood as Vice-President, but as for the others...she supposed Lee was there for his father, but it hurt to see Kara and Chief there too.

If Tigh and Sam looked like they wished the world would destroy them instead of playing torturous games, their counterparts on the opposite side looked even worse. Kara's gaze left Sam to look at Cally, piercing and broken at the same time, as if she was holding back tears; she looked back to Sam, then to Cally again. Cally could remember so long ago when Kara's eyes had always met hers in warm friendship. Chief's gaze stayed only on her, but the disbelief and betrayal mingled in a way that made her realize just how far she'd come.

She didn't have much to say in the negotiations. Roslin and Adama spoke to Natalie and Tory with more detachment than not, so Cally kept being caught off guard by the heartbreaking emotion on Kara and Chief's faces. The pain struck deeply, more than she wanted to admit.

The preliminary discussion and strategy brainstorming went on for some time before final statements could be made.

"Then we agree," Adama said at last with barely a nod.

Natalie tipped her head in response. "Indeed. We will destroy resurrection together, but not before we rescue the Threes, and hope that D'Anna will give us the Fifth."

Cally wasn't too surprised that Tory had given in on the resurrection idea, not after it made things so much easier for the Fleet when they were mortal—and really, who deserved more than mortality?

"And if the Fifth doesn't have what we need to get to Earth?" Roslin asked with one eyebrow still high.

Natalie pursed her lips. "Then we will follow the scriptures that you think will lead us."

A moment of silence hung. It all seemed so simple like that, an easy agreement. Then Roslin spoke again.

"But we wish that these two of the Final Five remain in the Fleet, for the sake of the alliance," Roslin added, looking down to where Sam and Tigh still stood.

Neither of them spoke, but Cally knew it was obvious that they wouldn't object. The Fleet called to them even now.

"Very well, then," Natalie said with finality. She smiled. "You cannot imagine what this means for us."

"The opposite is also true," Adama grunted, but not coldly. Natalie reached out her hand to shake Roslin's; Tory shook Adama's.

There was nothing else to be said in an official capacity. Word needed spreading, and so Roslin left with Zarek, and Adama with Lee following reluctantly.

"Well," Natalie breathed out, seemingly unaware of the others not of her kind still standing around. "Leoben, Nora, shall we depart?"

They moved towards the Heavy Raider, leaving the Final Four and the two humans who still mattered.

Cally swallowed as she saw Tigh still standing stiff, as if this admission of guilt had hardened him.

Tory stepped forward. "You're all right? You weren't threatened?"

The silence was awkward, but Cally saw that Sam wasn't closed off yet. "Hey," she ventured to them all, hating the barrier between them—why couldn't they still be together on this? "Now what?"

She'd forgotten Kara.

"Now what?" Kara answered the question not asked of her, a sudden snap of her voice as she looked at them, angry and sad all at once. "You mean you didn't have a plan already set in place for how to screw us over?"

Sam finally moved, giving Kara a startled look as if it was the first time she had spoken since the news, as if she hadn't said anything before. It wouldn't surprise Cally if she hadn't.

"And you, Cally?" Kara continued, settling on her because she had spoken. "You know, I could almost understand Sam, even with the resistance." Her words fell out, frustrated and too upset to be hateful or uncaring. "It was too good, his act. But you? You were so real. I don't understand how they did it."

But before Tory could jump in, Cally's eyes narrowed on Kara's, and even though she knew that Kara's words were to hide the confusion, she couldn't take it standing—or in a calm tone. "Kara, stop it! You have no idea what you're talking about, _especially_ not with what happened to you. And we know even less about everything than you do—can't you at least try to be rational even if you're upset?"

"Cally," Tory and Sam tried to softly chide at the same time.

"No, I'm not going to stop," Cally countered, feeling as if her eyes were on fire as she looked to them, to their awkward faces, and then back to Kara and the bitter hurt on her face. She took a deep breath and continued, looking to Chief as well where he stood listening silently. "You know, the only thing that being a Cylon has meant for me is that I have a family. A real family, not just the appearance."

She didn't need to see Tory's face to know that the emotion played a true reflection there.

"I didn't destroy the Colonies," Cally continued, and it was just as much for Tigh and Sam as for the humans. "And I didn't kill any humans, and neither did Sam, or Tory, or the Colonel. Maybe the other Cylons have something to ask forgiveness for, but we don't. So I'm not asking. And you can all go frak yourselves for whatever reason if you want to be hurt about that."

And there it was, that feeling of rightness deep in her heart that overwhelmed all the training and conditioning that said that 'Cylon' meant 'enemy'. Tory put a hand on her shoulder as Cally stepped back, stepped away from them. She couldn't hate Kara, even for her antagonism now. But she hated what it stood for, what it meant for her and her family.

Chief finally met her eyes, said almost hoarsely, "It's hard to believe you're Cally, you coming this far."

Cally's eyes held his, and she kept her tone quiet as she said, "And I have so much farther to go. So much." If they could only manage to hold the hatred off just long enough.

She heard Kara take a deep breath and looked up to see her send one last glance at Sam, conflicted and broken. Arms crossed protectively, she turned and walked out of the hangar, Chief behind her.

The Final Four stood alone at last.

"Well, I'm not dead." Sam's voice came out cracked, dry and too dark to even be meant as humor. Just a plain fact.

"I didn't mean to—" Cally started, seeing the harsh pain still on his face.

But he shook his head. "No, don't feel guilty. It has to go like this before..." He looked off where Kara walked off, and said quietly, "I think I can deal with it."

It took him a few moments to walk off, a few moments where Cally saw the determination in his eyes, and knew that he wasn't going to stop facing the conflict that they'd pushed him to start today. And maybe they'd both be right about Kara, if they gave her enough time.

"It's all out now," Tigh sighed, shoulders sinking from their tensely backed position. "Everything."

Cally raised her eyes, and for a moment it looked like Tory was going to object. There were still mysteries, just that no one knew. After a moment, though, she said instead, "Maybe we'll find Earth after all."

Tigh nodded slowly, looking ready to go off like Sam to try to rescue what human connection still mattered to them.

"Whatever happens, I feel like we'll be okay," Cally said into the darkness of the space between all of them.

Tory nodded, and reached up a hand to stroke Cally's arm. Things kept moving towards the better, and if they ever didn't, she and Cally would be there and be ready to nudge things again. No one had expected them to fulfill that role—maybe it was why they'd achieved this much with it.

In a few moments they could return to the Cylons and learn more about their new people. Cally just hoped that humanity would be good for them in the end, even beyond the mission to the Hub, with the choices they'd made to stay with them. As if he felt the same, the final words of the day on Galactica came from Tigh in a low rumble:

"We'll survive."

The words followed Tory and Cally as they joined their companions in the Heavy Raider. And though they left Tigh and Sam to face the unsure aspect of that promise, what mattered was that it was never more true for Tory and Cally than now. They had so much farther to go together, as Cylons, that they never would have dreamed of before. Sometimes the best things in life came because of unexpected journeys.


End file.
